Friday, December 22, 2006

Good documentation has helped keep the two-year-old Ubuntu project among the most popular Linux distributions. To complement the traditional venues for help, such as FAQs, HOWTOs, bulletin boards, and mailing lists, Ubuntu uses interactive forums such as Internet Relay Chat to conduct training classes for new users.This is the site I should have posted yesterday from Gari.AlaskaJoe

Create your very own personalized and unattended Windows installation CD, integrate your favorite software and make it install automatically during Windows setup. The best 200 freeware programs are available so that you can enjoy Firefox, CCleaner, Skype, WMP11, Java 6, etc. since the first boot of your operation system. Video tutorials!Its got it all! Check it out--MissM

Thanks to Gari (KoffeeBeanz) for this link:This site is for everyone who is new to Ubuntu. Here you will find short video clips that highlight Ubuntu's features and demonstrate how to complete common tasks using Ubuntu.This is a very nice web site with lots of info if your thinking of trying a Linux distro. I think Ubuntu has it right, this is the first time I had everything working on a Linux distro and didn't have to call someone for help. (like Jack or Gari or Greg)

Remember Ubuntu has a live CD (The OS plays from a bootable CD) You can try it before you click on the icon to start the installation, that is on the desktop. I have noticed for the latest version you need at least 256MB of memory. Enjoy a new experience try Ubuntu!AlaskaJoe

Thursday, December 21, 2006

I know a lot of listeners, hosts and bloggers live in California and Texas. So I thought this settlement info might interest those people.

Sony settles rootkit suit: $1.5M to states, users file for refundsSony BMG this week settled a lawsuit brought by California and Texas over the infamous XCP "anti-piracy" spyware trojan. The media giant got off with a slap on the wrist for the long-running rootkit debacle, which affected nearly 5 million CDs -- Sony will pay a total of $1.5 million to the states, and a smaller sum in customer refunds.[snip]Link to AP story. Link to previous BoingBoing coverage.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

I figured you ought to know about this. Not that I think you are so silly as to click on unsolicited files, but you have friends, family and associates who probably need to be reminded of this.

Details are still sparse, but the message with the executable attached is apparently disguised as a security upgrade and looks official enough to fool at least a few folks. I imagine it's enough to know that Skype can be an attack vector and that one needs to look out for it.

Whether or not you agree with him (and I don't) this is a very interesting list. It's also interesting to see how few of these applications are still in widespread usage. Things do change over time, evolving, at least.

Many of us remember those old machines. They were primitive and limited, but they opened our eyes to previously unthinkable horizons.

MIT's Technology Review has a partial list of reproductions and emulations of those old machines, along with some modern-day ones meant to teach younger people about computing. Some are kits, some are complete machines. At the very least, reading this 2 page article will whet your appetite for the reproduction machines. It did mine.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 12-17-06. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. If you prefer, you can download the same file here via ftp.

As you will read when you click on the link above, there are a lot of Linux kernel developers who want to do away with proprietary "binary only" modules being introduced into the kernel. This is in the interest of free software purity. To be free software, the source code must be available to the user and there are currently a LOT of drivers and other modules for which source code is not available.

Linus Torvalds opposes this, but will not stand in the way if that is what the developers want to do. Linus' position is that doing this is just another restriction on users, which has a lot to do with their reasons for developing Linux - to avoid restrictions on what they can use their computers for.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I side with Linus on this, but could live with it either way.